Sunday in the ‘hood with T

There’s nothing quite like having an unexpected free morning. Especially on a beautiful sunny day. After a leisurely morning eating the breakfast I would have been eating while camping — bacon, pancakes and eggs. (Oh yeah!) After some quality gorging, followed by some quality laying on the couch, I decided we should go for a little walk down to the Farmer’s Market followed by a little more walking around the neighborhood.

The Farmer’s Market was a zoo (not surprising, given the weather) so we kept walking until we came to the Ballard Locks (officially called Hiram M. Chittenden Locks) I’ve managed to live in Seattle for a cumulative four years without ever seeing them, so today seemed like a good day to check them out. Tucked in the middle of a pretty botanical garden, the locks are pretty cool. There are two sections that boats go through on their way to/from the Puget Sound to Salmon Bay. Tons of tourist gather to watch the process:

Here the doors are opening to let some boats out:

Poor kayakers waiting for their turn:

Looking down the canal toward Puget Sound. You can’t quite tell from this photo, but there were tons of boats lined up, waiting their turn to go through the locks:

On both sides there are these terraced lawns where you can sit and watch the boats go by. (Or roll down them if you’re young and/or so inclined… )

T and I sat in the sunshine for a while, watching the boats go by:

After sitting around for a while, we wandered back. There were tons of salmon jumping in one of the channels, which was pretty amazing to see. It seems so counter-productive, but very entertaining to watch big silver fish fly through the air. Then we hit the farmer’s market again to get some crepes. (Oh yes, the post-race debauchery just goes on and on… ) All in all, a most enjoyable Sunday.

Jump!

This morning started very early as we were off to see M’s race. Unfortunately, as we were stumbling out of bed, we got a text from J saying that M was running a fever and wouldn’t be racing. I was very sad for M, as I know she was looking forward to the race but was proud of her for taking care of herself. So, we went back to bed for a few more hours of sleep only to wake up to blue skies. As I sleepily observed the gorgeous weather, I thought “It’s too bad T wasn’t skydiving today.” A few beats later, I woke T up to have him call the skydiving people and see if they could fit him in. As he was on the phone, someone canceled so we scrambled to get ready and get out to Snohomish in time for his appointment.

I wasn’t sure how long it would take, so I brought my bike along just in case. It turned out that I only had about an hour, so I killed some time in a local bakery before coming back to see the boy all decked out in his fancy flight suit:

He was in the second jump-group, which was great because we got to watch the first jump group and see how it all worked. They had a nice area for spectators that looked out over the runway/landing area:

Before long, it was time for T to get harnessed up with the help of one of the instructors:

And then he got to add this adorable little helmet:

(His instructor/tandem jump-partner is the laughing man over his left shoulder, making me wonder if the helmets are for actual safety or instructor’s amusement. You decide… )

Soon it was time for him to join his group and get on the plane:

And off they go…

The next time I see T, he’ll be a tiny dot coming out of a tiny plane high in the sky. I had about fifteen to twenty minutes before that happens, which I spent sitting in an Adirondack chair in the sun, reading Wired magazine. Before I knew it, the microscopic version of T’s plane was high overhead and little silver dots were coming out of it. (The silver dots are smaller parachutes that slow them down slightly while they are in freefall.) Then the regular chutes opened and I tried to guess which one was T.

I took pictures of all of them coming in, just in case. But T turned out to be the first one who landed, (which happily enough is the one where I got the best pictures.) I’m pretty sure this one is T coming in for a landing:

And here he is, safely on the ground:

He had an awesome time and apparently wasn’t even nervous. His instructor said he could feel him giggling on the way down, (which sounds like T.) And here he is vogueing for the camera:

He didn’t wipe the smile off of his face for most of the day, making it pretty much the best birthday present I’ve ever given. So now, T is no longer the 40-year-old barista/student but rather the super cool 40-year-old who jumps out of airplanes and has a fabulous wife.

Wanna make God laugh?

Tell him your plans… My father-in-law said this (and if you know anything about my father-in-law, you know how ironic that is.) This weekend was an excellent example of this statement in action. We awoke to a blustery, rainy Saturday morning. We had to call the skydiving place to make sure they were jumping today, even though we were reasonably sure that they weren’t. Unfortunately, we were correct. It was a huge bummer, so we decided to brighten our days with a little trip to Besalu:

Since I had some free time on my hands, I offered to accompany M to her packet pick-up and allow T to have some nag-free computer time. I’m no where near the photo-journalist that she is, but I tried to capture the awesome registration moments:

M was coming down with cold and feeling a little anxious about her race tomorrow, but she still rocked the super-cute race shirt:

(Side note – that is a size LARGE. I think Trek might want to rethink vendors for next year, as I’d need a XL and a lot of women there would need even larger sizes. Hardly an empowering way to go into your first triathlon. I’m just sayin… )

We also got to watch Sally Edwards hype the crowd:

And of course when they brought up all of the Team Survivor folks, my eyes teared up. There’s nothing like a stage full of cancer survivors to put your petty complaints into perspective. After some “You go girlfriends” and high-fives, we hit the road.

The rest of the day was spent with a nice misty run out to the sculpture garden and back followed by the movie (500) Days of Summer, which if you haven’t seen, I highly recommend. It wasn’t the day I was planning, but still very enjoyable.

The forty-year old husband

Today is T’s 40th birthday. He’s not super excited about it, mostly because he’s currently going to school and pouring coffee at the local Safeway Starbucks. So, my mission was to make him have a great birthday weekend and hopefully make him feel better about the big four-oh. I had an awesome present in store that, if the boy didn’t figure it out, would be pretty much the best birthday surprise ever. (Don’t worry, it will all be revealed soon… )

First on the agenda, we were going out for a delicious dinner with our closest friends. I picked a restaurant that was highly rated by Yelp and personally recommended by two coworkers: Restaurant Zoe. It was cool to get dressed up and go out for a fancy dinner, as we don’t do that very often any more. We met up at M’s house, so we could carpool and had a pre-dinner glass of beer. We also got to admire Fergus’ handiwork on T’s present:

Isn’t he such a good kitty? Anyone can have a normal present, but a present personally chomped on by Fergus? Now, that’s special! And with that, we were off to dinner:

Oh, Restaurant Zoe, I think I’m in love with you. For anyone who is in Seattle and wants a delicious meal, I heartily recommend them. The ambiance is lovely, the service was fantastic and the food… oh, the delightful food:

I didn’t take pictures of all the food, but it was as lovely as it was delicious. (Pictured above: Fresh Ricotta Gnudi with a beet sauce. Mmmmm… ) M was nice enough to snap a picture of the birthday boy and yours truly:

(We clean up pretty well, don’t we?) We ate a ridiculous amount of food and the waitress brought out a complementary cheese plate for T’s birthday (and to apologize for a mix-up with J’s order)

They put the world’s best birthday candle on the plate. Seriously, it melted down to the plate with the tiniest amount of melted wax at the bottom. Here’s M admiring the amazing candle:

It was a lovely evening, all thanks to T getting a year older…

Afterward, we hauled our over-stuffed selves back to M & J’s house for some present opening.

M & J got T a clay oven to bake bread in. (I love presents that mean I get more fresh baked bread, so thanks from both of us!) I didn’t get too many pictures, so hopefully M will share some of hers:

Finally, it was time for T to open my present. In addition to a cute little notebook for him to use for school, I’d wrapped up a little box with a postcard informing him that he was going skydiving tomorrow morning. He was so excited, as he’s been wanting to go skydiving forever and he was totally surprised, which was pretty cool.

So far, his 40th year is off to a good start. Stay tuned to hear about T’s big skydiving adventure…

West Seattle Saturday

This evening, I convinced T for a trip over to West Seattle to swim in Colman Pool. (The awesome pool referred to in this post.) T hasn’t been swimming in a while, what with being busy at school and all, so he was less excited about the expedition than I was:

It was a largely uneventful swim, except for one notable exception where T,  swimming toward me got a little too wild with his arm motions (and a little too far in the center of the lane) and accidently punched me right in the nose. (Let me tell you, that really smarts!) To his credit, he felt terrible and apologized profusely. (I think he was relieved I didn’t punch him back on the return trip!) Oh well, I guess it’s good practice for the swim start at Ironman Canada…

Otherwise, the swim was great. T did well and more importantly was willing to wait for me to finish swimming my much longer set. Afterward, we walked back through Lincoln Park and let the dogs out for a little frolic in the park:

Both of us were starving after all of the swimming, so we decided to treat ourselves to a little Alki indulgence:

It wasn’t the healthiest recovery meal, but I will admit it was pretty tasty. We walked around Alki a little bit and then headed back from home. We made a brief stop for cupcakes, where I saw this awesome sign (doesn’t it bring to mind a Monty Python sketch?)

All in all, it was a really fun Saturday evening.

New toy

I picked up a new toy this weekend, a new digital camera to replace the one that’s being held together by a rubber band. I’m always amazed by technology and how quickly it moves forward. The new camera is smaller, better and cheaper than the one we bought *cough* five *cough* years ago. I mean it’s literally half as thick, it’s crazy. The new one is also shockproof and waterproof, so hopefully it won’t break when I drop it and I’ll be able to take swim pictures (oh boy!)

The tricky thing is getting used to how the new one works. It also seems to hate T, here are the first three pictures it took:

I mean really, what’s that about? It did take a very nice picture of Wally:

And a cute one of M in her new shirt:

I just need to get used to it’s timing. I’m sure there will be decent pictures of T in the future. (I mean, they’ve got to get better, right?)

Birthday boy

T is now very, very old (39) and was not feeling particularly pleased with his closer proximity to 40, so to cheer him up we went out with our friends M & J to a local place called Pies & Pints. Pies & Pints has been an ongoing joke in our circle (One of those “you had to be there” things where M, in a moment of hunger and parking-induced crankiness snapped at J that he’d been to P&P many times and it was his FAVORITE place, when in fact he had never been. Naturally, we’ve been teasing her about it ever since.) So, neither of the boys had been and were both immediately big fans, since the menu is potpies and beer. Pretty much the perfect fare for rainy Seattle evenings…

We settled in at a booth and ordered some sweet potato fries to tide us over. I got a very delicious pear cider and the rest of the crew had Mac & Jack’s porter, which was also quite good. I tried to balance out my pie by getting a salad with it. They totally cancel each other out, right?

A pies eye view:

The adorable M & J:

And of course, the birthday boy and yours truly…

T had a slice of very decadent Guiness layer cake for dessert, (I may have stolen a few bites here and there) and M had a very lovely looking chocolate mousse. We then went to Half Price Books for T to see if they had a textbook of his (school being around the corner and all… ) and for M and I to restock our dwindling bookshelves, ha ha…

Happy birthday, T. Next year we’ll make a bigger fuss as you enter the brave new world of your FORTIES!

Kickin’ it old skool…

T has joined a kickball team here in Seattle and last night was his first game. A little back story: when we were still in Portland T was lamenting how we didn’t do anything social and how he wanted to join some teams, etc. So, when I was out with Ms. Cyclone and some of her cohorts for dinner, one of them had just come from a kickball game and when I mentioned that my husband would love doing something like that he said they were just about to start a new round and were looking for folks. Perfect.

And that’s how T found himself playing kickball on his first week in Seattle. Their game was over by Green Lake, so I planned to do a little run beforehand and then watch the game. The loop around Green Lake is apparently crazy-crowded all of the time, so it took me longer than I expected to bob and weave through everyone, so by the time I made it back the game was well under way. I decided to take a couple of photos to commemorate the occasion. Here’s T in the dugout, looking so pleased to have his picture taken:

Here’s the huddle (plotting some mad kickball strategy, no doubt!):

And the awesome skills of the Grasskickers at work:

They ended up winning the game by 8-6 – not bad for their first game. Then the umpire came up and asked if they wanted to play again because another team hadn’t shown up. So T and some other members of the team opted to stay for round 2. I went and grabbed some food and then returned to watch. They got throroughly trounced by the second team, but it didn’t go on their record so all was well. All in all, a pretty enjoyable evening. So far our Seattle life is much more social than our Portland one, which I am quite happy about. Hopefully, we can continue the trend…

T vs. the air mattress

Because of his amazing air mattress folding skills, T usually has the honor of putting away M and J’s awesome air mattress. As the photos below illustrate, it’s a highly scientific endeavor that requires careful precision and timing…

Do not attempt this at home. He is a trained professional…

Once that hilarity was done, we hit the road for a day of driving. First down to Portland, then down to Salem to pick up the dogs, then back up to Portland, followed by some grocery shopping because our house is completely devoid of food. At one point in the drive, we came across this charming spectacle:

And here’s a close-up, in case you aren’t quite disgusted enough:

I’m sure it’s probably bad that I posted his license plate number, but I’m sure I can somehow work his appallingly bad taste into my defense…

Another highlight from the trip home was courtesy of the McDonalds bathroom/Diet Coke stop:

What does that even mean? Is the ‘toity’ part bad? Or is it some sort of warning? It is awesome to imagine the advertising agency writers brainstorming this, though. That’s about it as far as amusements go, I was pretty beat. Special thanks to all of my Seattle friends for making the visit so much fun – you guys rock!

Escape from Orcas Island – the actual anniversary

For all of our big plans of getting up early and do our bike ride and long run went to crap with the comfiness of the bed and the cold drizzliness of the morning weather. So we slept in and headed into Eastsound for breakfast around 10:30, with the intention of catching the 2:00 ferry that afternoon. We found a great little cafe and had a great breakfast, then wandered around town looking at the shops and killing some time.

We came across this shop, which I had to snap a picture of to give T. a hard time. (He made the unfortunate mistake of using the word “fabu” once and I’ve been pretty much teasing him ever since… )

We headed to the ferry around 12:30, only to find that it was already full and that we’d have to wait for the 4:15. It wouldn’t be a big deal to spend more time on the island, but you have to leave your car in the line and the weather was pretty crappy so we were pretty much confined to the immediate area of the ferry terminal.

Luckily, we found a nice little cafe in the lobby of a hotel that had free wireless, good food and excellent coffee, so T. and I settled in with our book/laptop/caffeine addictions and spent an enjoyable few hours hanging out together. Before we knew it, the ferry arrived and we were on our way back to Seattle. Originally, I’d been planning to head back down to Portland that night, but with the lateness of the hour and our general fatigue, we decided to stay an extra night in Seattle with M. and J.

When we arrived at their place around 7:15, it was a delightful surprise that a delicious dinner was in progress, Ms. Cyclone was there and M. had set up a beautiful table for us to eat at together:

Ms. Cyclone works for a winery, so she’d brought over a champagne still in the testing phase:

To the left of the bottle is some of J’s first experiment in cheese making – his initial attempt at mozzerella. While we sipped the champagne (delicious) Ms. Cyclone explained the corking process for champagne:

Soon it was dinner time – Swiss Steak with boiled potatoes and salad and featuring The Barfing Chicken:

But that’s just a pitcher, why would they call it that? Oh wait…

Pure awesome. M & J bought the Barfing Chicken on their honeymoon and he is only used for special occasions, so we were most honored to be one of those occasions. During dinner Ms. Cyclone embarrassed T. by making him come up with nice things to say about me (tee-hee!) and we had a really nice dinner with our friends. Pretty much a million times better than a long drive home in the rain…

Happy anniversary T! I’m really glad to be on this crazy adventure with you.